What to do when flower thieves crop up

Beautiful bigleaf hydrangeas are sometimes tempting to thieves. Flower retailers should be wary of buying hydrangeas that may be stolen.

Beautiful bigleaf hydrangeas are sometimes tempting to thieves. Flower retailers should be wary of buying hydrangeas that may be stolen.

Photo: Pam Peirce

Photo: Pam Peirce

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Beautiful bigleaf hydrangeas are sometimes tempting to thieves. Flower retailers should be wary of buying hydrangeas that may be stolen.

Beautiful bigleaf hydrangeas are sometimes tempting to thieves. Flower retailers should be wary of buying hydrangeas that may be stolen.

Photo: Pam Peirce

What to do when flower thieves crop up

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Q:My partner and I just finished a three-year renovation project in Noe Valley and finished it off with some beautiful landscaping in the front and along the side of our home. Apparently, someone has taken a fancy to our new hydrangeas and decided the flowers would look nice in their home. So many stems were ripped (not cut) away, we're not sure the plants will make it to next year. We would love to keep the hydrangeas, but may have to replace with something less enticing. What do folks do to deter flower theft?

A: I seriously doubt that a thief took your flowers to decorate his own home. Hydrangeas have often featured prominently in illicit business plans. The last spate of such crimes was in 2000 and 2001, when hydrangeas and other flowers were stolen for resale from private gardens and parks in San Francisco and on the Peninsula.

I spoke with Noe Valley beat officer Lorraine Lombardo, whose first advice is to file a police report to alert police to what is happening in the neighborhood. (If my hunch is right, you are probably not the only victim.) An examination of the scene of the crime could also reveal clues, such as footprints in muddy earth, which could help reveal the culprit. An easy way to report such thefts is by calling 311, the city's 24/7 Customer Service Center.

She also suggested joining or starting a neighborhood watch group. These are organized by a private nonprofit, San Francisco Safe, which you can learn about at (415) 673-7233 or at sfsafe.org. (If you have never heard about this fine program, I strongly suggest you read about it on their Web site.)

The value of having a neighborhood that is informed about police reports is recognized by the Noe Valley Voice (noevalleyvoice.com), which includes a "Police Beat" section. Officer Lombardo also suggested you write a short article about your loss and submit it to the Voice to inform others about flower theft activity.

As to more direct action, Officer Lombardo suggested a fence, which would obviously need to be of open wire, so plenty of light could get to the plants and you could still see them. Any deterrent, even a relatively unobtrusive one, will discourage opportunistic thieves.

It is sometimes possible to find the retailer who is buying the flowers. Several years ago, members of my San Francisco community garden tracked down mixed bouquets of our missing flowers to a small local grocery and alerted the grocer that they were stolen. In 2000, park officials and police cooperated to stop hydrangea thefts (sfgate.com/ZIXZ).

They secretly marked the stems, then, when the flowers disappeared, checked at the Sixth and Brannan flower mart. Sure enough, the flowers turned up there, leading to a heartfelt apology from an unsuspecting flower wholesaler. (I assume they used an indelible ink pen.) That same year, one irate resident in a high-theft area wired each stem of his hydrangeas to a fire alarm. Arduous, perhaps, but very effective. The thief cut only one flower, dropped it and ran away.

Q:I've had a citrus planted in the container it arrived in from the nursery, placed in a sunny area on my balcony, since last Christmas. I'm waiting for it to bear lemons. How do I get it to bear lots of lemons?

A: Citrus can take up to three years to bear well, but I suspect your plant would do much better in a larger container. It probably needs room to grow more roots before it can make more leaves and bear fruit. Start by transplanting it into a container that is 15-18 inches in diameter. Purchase a good planting mix. Do not use pot shards or pebbles at the bottom of the new pot since these actually interfere with drainage. Instead, cover drainage holes with small pieces of fiberglass window screen. (Buy some at a hardware store and cut it up with scissors.)

Remove your plant from its pot and look at its roots. Leave the existing potting mix on the rootball. Gently open any surface roots that are running in circles, and lift any other root ends at the surface gently from the root ball. Reset the plant in potting mix in its new pot, keeping it at the same level it was before. Water with a slow trickle till it drips out the bottom. Get a citrus fertilizer and use it according to directions. Water whenever the mix is dry 2 inches deep. (A moisture meter is very useful.)